Mental stress clouds our mind and our judgment. It takes away from us good decision making skills and hinders our ability to think properly. Stress is a response from the more primitive parts of our mind. It is the fight or flight response that sends our mind into a focused chaos. All non-critical functions of the body cease as you prepare yourself to avoid a dangerous situation. This is how it is used in the wild; however we are creatures of an urbanized society. The point of stress is rarely made in our everyday life. Instead we feel the repercussions of the stress response as opposed to utilizing its benefits.

Setting goals

There are individuals in the world with extensive practice of meditation. They eventually reach a point where they can control the involuntary actions of the body. Hiccups, sneezing, even the dilation of the pupils are under their will power. More importantly the fight or flight response becomes a choice. This is quite a feat to accomplish and it is not one we can expect to accomplish without a great deal of practice. Let us aim at a more achievable goal.

Lowering the fight or flight response

Lowering the fight or flight response is something we can all do to overcome mental stress. It takes practice and the reprogramming our subconscious. Tell yourself periodically that your fight or flight response is in your control. Let yourself know that your response to non-dangerous stress isn’t one of fight or flight. To get better control of the primitive parts of the mind we must utilize the subconscious. It directly communicates with it as well as the whole body. It listens to what we say and it does its best to follow your orders at all times. This is not some pseudo-science, these are clinically proven methods of re-patterning of how you think and behave.

Gain control of your mind

To overcome mental stress we must gain control of the mind. We must adapt new techniques for handling old situations. Focusing and directing the mind in positive and constructive way will always be your choice. We can choose to improve ourselves for our benefit and for the loved ones around us. It is up to you and it always will be.

We grow up with stress and accept it as a part of our lives. This leads many of us to not question it and accept it as it is. If we look at its source, triggers, reason for existing we can begin to understand how to mold stress for our benefit.

Stress is a biological response triggered when a stressful stimulus is presented. This stimulus can come in many forms. It is highly individual and it is not static. We can positively change our response to most stress stimulus (stressors). It takes focus and putting knowledge about stress into action with stress reduction techniques. It will take personal discipline and self-respect. Stress is straight forward in many cases and understanding how and why it works will be a key to taking control.
We need to look at our personal stressors and why they cause us stress. Identifying them is the first step to taking control of them. We then must ask ourselves why they cause us stress. Is this stress worth our personal turmoil? If you feel it is worth it can we lower the response? Can we find a place of calm and patience while faced with this stress? If not, what can we do to take steps to lower the stress?

There are many important question that often we do not ask ourselves because we have been accepting the conditions as they are. We have been coping with any variety of methods and allowed this level of stress tolerance stress level and to be OK. In most cases this level of tolerance for stress is excessively high. We are better copers than we are empowered individuals. Anyone can choose to take the higher road and relax in the face of stress. To do this though we must focus and practice. Calming down in the moment not only relaxes us but it frees our mind to do more stress reduction techniques while in the face of it.